Star of David Torn in Israel

Israeli ideology excludes the Palestinians of 1948 from merging in the Zionist cultural and political framework owing to their special nature as an extraordinary minority that has the original right to Palestine. Zionism has failed to melt the different Jewish groups from which the invading majority is formed, particularly two ethnic groups - the Ashkenazim or Eastern Jews (the Jews of the Islamic world) and the Russians. This is despite the lapse of more than 50 years since the proclamation of the State of Israel.

The Ashkenazim (about half the population of Jews in Israel) represent a civilization that is completely different from the Western one. Throughout its history, the Ashkenazic civilization has not produced Zionist ideological trends, unlike the Sephardim or Western Jews (the Jews of Europe and America), and it proceeds from eastern doctrinal and civilizational grounds. This asserts that Zionism belongs to the Western civilization and that it does not represent the Jews in the world as it claims.

As for the Russian Jews (about one million settlers, who migrated to Israel during the 1990's owing to the collapse of the Soviet Union), they reached Israel while it was in a state of ideological disintegration and a recognition of multiple races, which Zionism has failed to melt into one pot. Their abstention from joining the existing parties and formation of their own Russian parties, in addition to hundreds of Russian cultural and media institutions, are evidence to the new ethnic, multi-faceted environment. This has replaced the ideological vacuum and was created by the fall of Zionist ideology.

Palestinians of 1948

The group that suffers the most, however, is that of the Arabs or the Palestinians in Israel. Although they are the sole natural group of people in a state that is odd from the social and civilizational points of view (i.e. it does not belong to its region and its roots pertain to the West), they seem to be peculiar in this colonial entity because they are a minority of a special, hostile nature.

As a result of this, they have two options. First, they have to announce their rejection of the State that was established on the debris of their society, and thus they will be exposed to exile and murder like their brothers, fathers and grandfathers, or to more humiliation and negligence inside this State. Second, they have to recognize this State and recognize that they are part of it, so that they may take a share of its resources to preserve their lives, exist in their homeland, and provide a reasonable standard of living for them.

The Palestinians in Israel struggle for their rights as individuals from the State budgets, because their areas suffer from negligence, injustice and discrimination in terms of the distribution of resources. They also suffer at the national level, because they are a minority that has collective rights of cultural distinction and the need to be expressed in institutions, such as the Supreme Follow-Up Committee. This is formed of Arab political leaderships of different trends. Some of those leaderships call for self-cultural independence or the like.

Conflict over Symbols

Conflict over symbols is part of the conflict over identity and matters related to it. This can be defined in aspects such as moral and material rights, particularly in an era that has witnessed the fall of ideological absolutes, and the rise of individualism and human rights, under which freedoms of expression and organizations cannot be suppressed.

In this context, the Palestinians call to change Israel's flag, which includes Jewish symbols, and replace it with another that includes the Star of David, the Cross and the Crescent to express the three religions in Israel. Also on their agenda is adopting another national anthem, rather than one which shows the "Jewish people's ambition" to "return" to Jerusalem. The Palestinians are also lobbying for a different education curricula, in particular history because it depicts Palestine as a land without people and considers it a possession of the "Jewish people". They also want to change other matters that do not show them as "citizens" in this State.

A limited number of the majority sympathize with these requests, especially those who belong to the post-Zionism trend and are hostile to this ideology owing to scientific and cultural reasons. They believe that Zionism imposes a history and culture that runs counter to reality and generalizes them to the Jews to serve security targets. This means that it does not observe truth and objectivity in bringing up the Jewish masses, and it imposes one form on all people, thus having an negative impact on the development of art and culture in Israel. They also believe that Zionism is unjust to some social categories that are not represented appropriately in Israel's history, such as the Ashkenazim and women, and it overestimates the military at the expense of scientists and intellectuals, etc. Thus, heroism has come to be related to violence and conflict, and not to useful innovation in non-military domains; something that reflects the distribution of moral and material advantages among certain sectors at the expense of others. Within this context comes the proposal of the former State Controller Meriam Powart (15 September, 2000) to pen another national anthem to express the Arab minority in Israel. Regardless of the fact that this proposal consecrates secessionism, and not unification of the inhabitants of Israel (Arabs and the Jews), and that it was voiced by a former official, it shows that the Zionist attitude, which monopolizes the symbols of the Zionist State, has started to change.

Due to such concordance between the Arab attitudes and those of the post-Zionism trend, we find that the number of Knesset members, who approve bills, including these requests, is steadily exceeding the number of the Knesset Arab members (13 at present). However, this number has not reached the majority yet. This increase can be interpreted in two ways. First, there is a minority of Jews that support these requests because they believe in the Israeli identity and the criterion of citizenship, not in religion and Jewish ethnicity, as regards the identification of "the Israeli" (the post-Zionism trend). Second, the existence of parliamentary political bargains - Jewish members of the Knesset support the Palestinians' requests in return for having the Arab members of the Knesset vote for certain issues.

Paradoxically, the hard-line trends, which adhere to Zionism (the extreme Right), have tried to remove advantages obtained by the Palestinians in Israel over the past years, such as the consideration of Arabic as the second official language in Israel. Hence comes the reaction of the National Religious Party (i.e. the Zionist) to the proposal of the above-mentioned, former state controller. Shaoul Yalhom, the education minister who resigned from the government of Barak, accused the former state controller of "casting doubts on the Jewish character of the State." He said: "Israel is a Jewish state, not a bi-nationalist one. Today, the introduction of a new national anthem is introduced, and tomorrow the removal of the Star of David from our flag could be proposed." This second proposal was voiced in the Knesset.

This analysis leads us to Israel's main dilemma: the legitimacy of existence and inability to settle its internal contradictions in the absence of the Arab recognition of its existence. Such recognition can make Israel a natural country and facilitate the merger between the Arab minority and the Jewish majority in one democratic Israeli entity that is not hostile to its adjacent states. Some believe it possible, while others believe it the impossible